MARLBOROUGH, MASS.- Bonhams Skinner saw exceptional results at their recent Books & Manuscripts online auction which ran from August 13-23. The auction was very successful, with 90 percent of the lots sold and a 100 percent sold-by-value rate. Over a third of the lots went over their high estimate, some by a large margin.
“Bidders from all over competed vigorously for many categories of material” said John Dorfman, Director of Books & Manuscripts. “We were particularly excited to see the enthusiasm for personal, archival material such as a collection of letters from Princess Grace of Monaco, a business correspondence from T. S. Eliot, a group of photographs from Nikola Tesla's laboratory and a fresh-to-the-market journal kept by a 17-year-old boy on a Massachusetts whaling voyage in the 1850s.”
Leading the auction results was Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), which sold for $68,750 (against an estimate of $15,000-$25,000). This book aimed to debunk myths about witchcraft, magic and other superstitions, and it also exposed some of the secret methods used by stage illusionists. This book was widely read in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and is thought to be a source for the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the mock trial of King Lear and the hobgoblin character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Witchcraft and the occult were themes in a few of the impressive lots offered and sold at auction. John Webster’s The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677) sold for $4,375, over seven times its high estimate. Webster was a cleric and physician who, like Scot, was a skeptic on the subject of witchcraft. He argues that witchcraft accusations grow out of delusions due to "melancholy and fancy" and asserts in this book that the claim that witches make a "corporeal league" with the Devil and "are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved."
As usual, there was strong interest in John James Audubon's bird illustrations, in both book and print form. The seven-volume first edition of Birds of America, from 1840, reached $37,500, while an elephant folio print of the Baltimore Oriole whistled its way to $6,250, over twelve times the high estimate. Standing out among the modern works is a first edition of the childhood favorite and cult classic, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, which sold for an impressive $8,125. This 1922 edition includes seven charming color illustrations and rabbit-pattern endpapers by William Nicholson.
My Bondage and My Freedom, by American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, also sold well, bringing $7,500 at auction. This influential book includes powerful arguments for the abolition of slavery and also underscores the importance of education and literacy in achieving that goal. As Douglass himself wrote, “Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.”
Documents and letters also fared well at auction, including the highly anticipated Princess Grace of Monaco handwritten letters, which sold for $27,500, far beyond its estimate of $3,500-$5,000. This group of personal documents, addressed to Grace Kelly’s dear friend Marguerite "Margie" Pinney, provide a look into the daily life of the American icon and includes 20 autograph letters, three postcards, around 30 pieces of formal correspondence, an invitation to Grace’s wedding to Prince Rainier, an invitation to a gala performance of the Opera of Monte-Carlo and five casual photographs. The letters to Margie include many personal disclosures about Grace’s children, motherhood, the demands of her royal duties, pleasure activities, aging and memories of the Philadelphia area, where they both grew up. In one letter regarding her experience in filming “A Look at Monaco,” she hints at competition between her and Jackie Kennedy.
A signed letter from Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code, sold for $10,000. The lot includes Morse’s letter discussing contract negotiations, a sheet containing "Morse's Telegraphic Alphabet" (Morse code) and a four-page brochure announcing the design (by sculptor Horatio Stone) of the National Telegraph Memorial Monument, in honor of Morse.
Highlighted lots from Massachusetts include:
● The Great Molasses Flood of Boston, legal document, sold for $3,125. This 203-page document includes information on an important court case in relation to the 1919 molasses flood in Boston, with eyewitness accounts of the accident.
● A Massachusetts Whaling Ship Logbook from 1856-58 sold for $5,938, and includes accounts from 17-year-old Albert Ring and his experience on a whaling ship, which he joined on a whim. The logbook describes the voyage in great detail, including specifics of life on the ship, the hunting, killing, and processing of whales, and the cultures of some of the Pacific islands visited. Final pages include financial accounts, names and addresses of crew members, songs, poems and drawings.
